Hasten, madam, out of this place, I will fasten up the doors and follow you." "Joseph (said Matilda) can you meet me in the garden by and bye, I wish to speak with you." "Directly after dinner, madam, I will wait upon your ladyship; I will look about a little, I think no one will come here in the open day." Matilda retired, with trembling limbs and a beating heart, to her own apartment; here she ruminated on what had happened to her friend so recently gained, and so irrecoverably lost—"Alas! poor lady (said she) who knows what evils she may have to encounter with; a stranger as I am to her story, I have no clue to guide me who may have carried her off, or by whom the cruel action was committed; doubtless it must have been her cries that alarmed Jaqueline—What will become of me? How are all my flattering prospects vanished?" With these bitter reflections she passed the hours 'till dinner time came; she then went down, but with a countenance so altered, that Bertha started back and cried out, "O, fora cer-
